In House: Inanna Publications

The Goddess Inanna was the most prominent female deity of ancient Mesopotamia: her vast dominion included the domains of Love, Wisdom, War, Fertility and Lust. Likewise, Inanna Publications, a publisher based in Toronto, is a feminist press proudly publishing all facets – love, war, wisdom, fertility, lust, and still more – of women’s writing.

Inanna was founded in 1978 as a largely educational press, releasing both books and one of Canada’s oldest feminist journals, Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme. Their initial goal of making current writing on a wide variety of feminist topics accessible to the largest possible reader base was so successful, the level of response (and sales!) from outside the academic market spurred the Inanna Poetry and Fiction Series in 2004. They now release titles in fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry.

The series is a logical extension of their forever-mandate, to conserve a publishing space dedicated to feminist voices that provoke discussion, advance feminist thought, and speak to diverse lives of women. On that last point, Inanna has made a continued, concerted effort to give a platform to marginalized and disenfranchised women, publishing incredible books by queer women and women of colour, as well as women in the prison or institution systems in Canada. These books have garnered popular readership and critical acclaim, like recent Toronto Book Award-finalist The Wondrous Woo by Carrianne Leung.If you’re looking to deepen your feminist knowledge, broaden your horizons, or just read a really great book, look no further than Inanna Publications.